Sunday, June 8, 2014

This text is about one of the most popular sports in the world: football.
It is played in almost every country and has gained popularity in the United
States recently, where people call soccer (football is a different sport there)

But how did football ________ ?

It is not known for sure how football began. Many people believe that
the first games were played in China and Japan over 1,000 years ago. The game that
we know today probably started in England. Many of the earliest football matches
were very violent and because of this, the British royalty tried to ban the
sport. However, they were not successful.

In 1857, the first football team was created in Sheffield, England. In
1863, eleven English teams met to form the first Football Association. In 1904,
a world association was created: FIFA, which stands for “Fédération
Internationale de Football Association”. Twenty-six years later, in 1930, Uruguay hosted the
first World Cup.

The World Cup is football’s biggest tournament and it takes place every
four years in a different country and is watched on television and in stadiums
by millions of people all over the world.

In the World Cup, thirty-two teams from different countries compete to
try to win the championship. In the first competition, in 1930, only thirteen teams
played. The winner of the first World Cup was the host country. The second
World Cup was in Italy and the third one in France. Because of the war, after
the games in France, the World Cup was not played again _______ 1950, this time
in Brazil.

The 2002 World Cup was special. It was the first time the games were
played in Asia. It was also the first time that two countries, Japan and Korea,
hosted the World Cup together.

In 2014 Brazil is the host country for the second time. A total of 64
matches will be played in twelve cities across Brazil and for the first time a
goal-line technology will be used.

1. Which sentence
is incorrect according to the text?

a) The sport that the
English call football the Americans call soccer.

b) The first World
Cup had fewer teams than the following ones.

c) The winner of
the first World Cup was Uruguay.

d) The World Cup in
1934 was in South America.

e) The 2002 World
was different from the previous competitions.

2. The third World
Cup was in _______ .

a) 1950

b) 1954

c) 1938

d) 2002

e) 1946

3. The first gap in
the text must be completed with __________ .

a) began

b) begin

c) begun

d) beginning

e) will begin

4. The second gap
in the text must be completed with __________ .

a) during

b) to

c) by

d) in

e) until

5. The sentence: “The World Cup is watched by millions of people around
the world” is in the Passive Voice. The same sentence, in the Active Voice is:

a) Millions of people around the world watched the World Cup.

b) The World Cup was watched by millions of people around the world.

c) Millions of people around the world watch the World Cup.

d) Millions of people are watched the World Cup around the world.

e) Millions of people around the world are watching the World Cup.

6. The word “later”, in the sentence “Twenty-six years later, in
1930, Uruguay hosted the first World Cup competition”, is the same as:

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The Statue of Liberty is a colosssal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in the middle of New York Harbor in Manhattan, New York
City. The statue, designed byFrédéric
Auguste Bartholdiwith the assistance of the engineer Alexandre Gustave Eiffel (designer of the Eiffel Tower) was
a gift from the French people to the United States as a recognition of the friendship

established during the American
Revolution. Over the years, the Statue of Liberty's symbolism

has grown to include freedom and democracy as well as this international friendship.

The
statue is of a female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddessof freedom, who bears a torch and
a tablet evoking the law upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration Independence, July
4, 1776. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States: a welcoming
signal to immigrants arriving from abroad.

Due
to the troubled political situation in France, the work on the statue did not
start until the early 1870s. Therefore the Statue
was a joint effort between the US and France and it was agreed upon that the
American people were to provide the site and build the pedestal and the French
people were responsible for the Statue and its assembly in the United States.
However, lack of funds was a problem on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In
France, public fees, various forms of entertainment, and a lottery were among
the methods used to raise funds. In the United States, benefit theatrical
events, art exhibitions, auctions and prize fights assisted in providing needed
funds.

Financing for the pedestal was completed in August, 1885 and the pedestal
construction was finished in April, 1886. The Statue was completed in France in
July, 1884 and arrived in New York Harbor in June, 1885 on board the French
frigate "Isere" which transported the Statue of Liberty from France
to the United States. In transit, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual
pieces and packed in 214 crates. The Statue was re-assembled on her new
pedestal in four months´ time. On October 28th,1886, the dedication
of the Statue of Liberty took place in front of thousands of spectators.

by Milton França - Adapted from www.wikipedia.com and www.statueofliberty.orgFeel free to get in touch - email: miltonfranca@gmail.com whatsapp: +5598991992887